This article considers the assessment challenges and prospects faced by foreign language teachers in Ukrainian universities in the context of the country's joining the Bologna Process. A major problem relates to adapting higher education to a common framework designed to facilitate comprehension and comparison of the content and outcomes of degree programmes and devising methods of quality assurance in foreign language teaching. The implementation of reforms in the area includes the improvement of assessment standards, the creation of new assessment instruments, and ensuring that teachers' professional repertoire includes skills in accurately measuring students' performance. Given the increased role of assessment in Ukrainian language education and the challenges this new demand poses to teachers, we investigated university foreign language teachers' readiness to carry out complex and multifaceted functions related to formative and summative assessment. Specifically, we replicated the European Survey of Language Testing and Assessment Needs and carried out a survey of our own design to identify specific strengths and weaknesses in the assessments performed by university foreign language teachers. The surveys yielded results that are broadly comparable with the European data, but with minor variations that mostly have to do with newly introduced forms of assessment. Our study shows that Ukrainian university foreign language teachers are quite test-wise and prepared to do a good job in language testing and assessment. The insights drawn from the data can contribute to developing syllabi for pre- and in-service teacher training in the area.

The rating process of students’ writing has been a long-standing concern in L2 large-scale standardized and classroom-based assessment. Several studies have tried to identify how the raters make scoring decisions and assign scores to ensure validity of writing assessment. The current paper addresses the issue of writing assessment practices of Ukrainian university teachers, how they approach rating scales and criteria with an attempt to understand culturally specific challenges of teachers’ writing assessment in Ukraine. To investigate the issue, this study employs the analysis of the survey results obtained from 104 university teachers of English. The survey consisted of 13 questions that provided insight into current practices in assessment of writing, such as frequency of assessment, use of rating scales, rater’s profile, criteria of assessment, feedback and rewriting, training in assessment of writing. The survey responses show that assessment in Ukraine is not regulated by common standard, and thus the approach to students’ writing assessment is often intuitive. A frequent practice is that teachers tend to rely on errors – as observable features of the text – to justify their rating decisions, Consequently, by shifting focus onto the surface features of writing, grammar mistakes in particular, the teachers underrate such criteria as “register”, “compliance with textual features” and “layout”. Additionally, the data reveal contradictory findings about writing assessment literacy of the teachers questioned. Even though most teachers claim they apply scales while rating, many confess they cannot tell the difference between holistic and analytic scales. Moreover, the results indicate that feedback is not yet a meaningful interaction between a Ukrainian teacher and a learner. Therefore, the results of the study demonstrate the need for the improvement in writing assessment practices, which could be achieved through providing training and reorientation to help Ukrainian teachers develop common understanding and interpretation of task requirements and scale features.

The article addresses the current trends of teaching subjects through the medium of English which has been boosting in the world and in Ukraine. Introduced due to globalization processes, teaching in English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has become an essential part of internationalization policies of universities. The increase in numbers of international students is viewed as an indication of quality of education provided by universities; it contributes to universities’ higher ratings and competitiveness. The introduction of EMI has been sustainably promoted by the British Council. Nonetheless, EMI providers across the world keep encountering similar issues and challenges. Amongst those, the most essential is low English language proficiency of non-native English speakers – both teachers and students. The article aims to examine the training provided to Ukrainian teachers who deliver EMI courses. The authors surveyed 28 EMI teachers in two universities in the country. The results imply the necessity to reprofile linguistic and pedagogical courses for EMI teachers, including training them in implementing innovative and interactive teaching techniques. The prospects of further research arouse from the need to develop a quality system of assessing students’ learning outcomes. Keywords: English as a medium of instruction, English language proficiency, methods of teaching and assessment, certification of EMI teachers

Language assessment literacy is currently in search of new, modern conceptualisations in which contextual factors have a growing significance and impact (Tsagari, 2020). This article presents an initiative to promote writing assessment literacy in a culture-specific educational context. Assessment of writing belongs to the under-researched areas in Ukrainian higher education, wherein teachers have to act as raters and as rating scale developers without being properly trained in language assessment. The gaps in writing assessment literacy prompted research into the strengths and weaknesses of using a local rating scale developed by university teachers. It was conducted within an Erasmus + Staff mobility project in 2016-2019 and followed up by dissemination events held in several universities in Ukraine. The сurrent study aims to explore the impact of training in writing assessment on the processes and outcomes of university teachers’ development and use of analytic rating scales. The paper analyses how three teams of teachers from different universities coped with the task, and whether the training they underwent enabled them to design well-performing rating scales. The nine participants in the study developed three local context-specific analytic rating scales following the intuitive method of scale design, detailed in the guidelines prepared by the trainer. Given the same context (ESP) and the same CEFR level (B1 ->B2), we managed to compare the three local rating scales. The study testifies to a positive impact of the training on teachers’ literacy in writing assessment.

Teaching and assessing summary writing remains in the focus of research into academic literacy, the issue revisited by every new generation of researchers in the light of the emerging affordances and plurilingual reality. In higher Ukrainian education, where teaching academic skills has gained momentum only in the past 15–20 years, summary writing pertains mostly to teaching Ukrainian to international students, teaching English for professional communication and training post-graduates. A 15-year practice of teaching academic English to students of linguistics has provided the author with extensive empirical data which, upon analysis conducted within action research, have enabled maximized effect on teaching summary writing. Along with the teaching methodology, the assessment technique was also optimized, based on rating scales with the criteria accepted by the students and detailed feedback provided to them via the Google Classroom platform. The comparison of pre-and post-tests of writing summaries of Ukrainian research articles verifies the hypothesis about the transferability of summarization skills built in English to academic L1. The author formulates the limitations of the action research project, implications and prospects of further research.

Стаття присвячена розгляду застосування технології Вебквест у навчанні англійської мови, зокрема змін, що відбулись останніми роками в його концепції, цілях/завданнях та особливостях використання, що й обумовило запровадження терміну Вебквест 2.0. Автори наводять міркування щодо визначення Вебквесту як розумового процесу, який починається із заохочення студента/команди до виконання вагомого та цікавого завдання, набуває імпульсу через командний мозковий штурм, який стимулює учасників проєкту до пошуку шляхів вирішення проблеми та призводить до більш поширеного вибору кожним учасником особистих навчальних траєкторій. Утім Вебквест має вирішити ряд завдань, щоб сприяти вихованню людини, яка б могла стати успішним професіоналом у ХХІ сторіччі. Веб-квест 2.0 ще має набути вищої якості співпраці, енергійніше стимулювати та розвивати критичне мислення, іншомовну компетентність студентів, формувати здатність креативного вирішення проблеми та генерувати інноваційні ідеї, передбачати розвиток інформаційно-комунікаційних умінь протягом усього терміну виконання Вебквесту, інтегрувати новітні досягнення інформатизації суспільства тощо. У публікації описано Вебквест, створений авторами для навчання англійського монологу майбутніх економістів, наводиться його професійно орієнтоване завдання, яке стимулює групову взаємодію, та ресурсна опора «мовна майстерня», яка дозволяє ефективно виконувати Вебквест, опановуючи водночас англійську мову професійного спрямування. Попри це авторами визначається протиріччя Вебквесту між автономією виконавців, розвиток якої є одним із провідних завдань методу, та його керованістю розробником за рахунок використання структури. Як перспектива осучаснення цього методу навчання розглядається відхід від його усталеної структури, що сприятиме більш гнучкій та збалансованій взаємодії студентів і викладачів.